Refinery strikes, which began in late September, are currently causing fuel shortages at many French service stations. If the State has levers to unlock access to fuel, its course of maneuver is nevertheless not infinite.
A delicate situation for the executive. For several days, the number of service stations closed due to non-refueling has exploded. This situation is the consequence of a strike launched since the end of September by refinery staff, who are demanding more favorable salary conditions.
To unblock this padlocked situation, the State can, if it wishes, requisition a refinery and thus send tanker trucks to recover fuel and resupply dry service stations. The executive had already resorted, in particular in 2010, to requisitioning refineries by force, but the situation should not recur in 2022, in order to avoid additional tensions across the country, and power relations between the strikers who block access to the sites and the police.
At the local level, only a temporary prefectural decree can force striking employees to return to work in order to ensure the transport, at a minimum, of fuel to the stations, if “the observed or foreseeable breach of good order, healthiness, tranquility and public safety requires it”, can we read in the General Code of Territorial Collectivities.
The threat yet brandished by some, not by the executive
The president of the Hauts-de-France region Xavier Bertrand (LR) had also insisted on this point last Thursday, when 32% of the service stations in his region are devoid of fuel. “We must not hesitate” in the face of the blocking of refineries, with “the requisition or the threat of requisition to release stocks”, at the national level, explained the former candidate for the Republican primary for the presidential election.
A different story on the side of the Elysée, whileEmmanuel Macron called “all the companies concerned and the employees to a spirit of responsibility”, this Monday.
Faced with this massive shortage, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne summoned four of her ministers to an emergency meeting organized tonight. Thus, the Ministers of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, of the Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher and of Transport Clément Beaune, as well as the spokesman of the government Olivier Véran are expected at 9 p.m. in Matignon.